Messages

I recently re-read the third edition of Messages: The Communications Skills Book (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 2009).  I had read their 2nd Edition (1995) some years back.  

The book is a nice compendium of the ways we send and receive messages through our voice, behaviors, and body language.  

The big takeaways for me from this reading were:

• LISTENING is the most powerful tool we have at our disposal in the communications tool chest.
• Transparency and disclosure are excellent door openers to high quality communications.
• Body language is at least as important as oral delivery.
• Assertiveness can be expressed without being aggressive.
• Employing validation strategies serves all parties in the communications contexts well.
• All of us engage others from the basis of our own experiences.  Trying to understand the other's experiences fully is an excellent starter for improved communications. 
• Quality questions always a good conversation starter, regardless of the kind of communications environment in which we find ourselves.

A good read.  Worth the time (again).